ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the moral rights of children relevant to their basic welfare and protection from harm. Children have the negative moral right against forced intimate association, because they too have tremendous interests at stake in connection with their social relationships, especially family life. Children are persons under the constitutions and Conventions which embody that moral right. A corollary of the view of children's situation is that no adults have a moral right to be in a parent-child relationship with a particular child independently of whether that is in the child's best interests - that is, unless and until the state properly makes a reciprocal choice of that adult on behalf of the child. The chapter addresses formation of children's family relationships, then regulation of particular aspects of their upbringing. A newborn child is a separate human being with needs and interests distinct from those of birth parents.
